


Stargazing

by harrowmarrow



Series: Two Nights with a Revhead and Redhead [4]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), mad max - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:16:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4223115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harrowmarrow/pseuds/harrowmarrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The War Rig is running hard back towards the canyon and the waiting war parties of Immortan Joe. After a rough start to the night, Nux and Capable have a few precious hours left to say the things that need to be said and then fucking fang it in the darkest, semi-private spot they can find.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stargazing

**Author's Note:**

> If this is your first time stopping by "Two Nights," it might be best to read the previous parts - I really should have made this a chapter story, but I didn't plan on there being more than two! For those who are returning, it has been a real pleasure, and I'm sorry this last part took so long. Life has been hectic and I wanted to make sure I finished it off to my own satisfaction, at least. Thus, I take my bow on the stage of Nuxable fic.

Nux is hunkered up in the hold of the War Rig, where Toast is sorting out ammo and keeping herself busy. In truth, she would probably curl up for some sleep herself, except she isn’t crazy about the idea of doing it with a jittery War Boy trapped in this claustrophobic metal can with her. 

Nux is in the hold to escape the keen watch of the older women scattered over the War Rig and to resist the urge to keep banging his head against the hard shell of the Rig. His skin is jumping with directionless energy – the canyon gapes ahead of them, its jaws stretching wider and wider the closer they get, and yet he has nothing to seize in his hands, nothing to stomp his boot down upon. He can feel the War Rig’s power, buzzing in his bones, but it does not leap from the ends of his fingers and feet. He is not driving it. He is not in control.

He is, in fact, skidding out hard in loose sand, unable to find that blessed, jarring return of traction – he does not understand why he is here and not in the cab. Why couldn’t he crawl up the hatch after Capable and curl up in the back seat with her? The cold look in her green eyes locked him out, as good as a hard head-butt and warning grunt. He pissed her off somehow – 

_Barry did it. With his talk of war. She hates anything hard and hot and ripping. And why not, she’s so clean and chrome – why go and get wrecked like the rest of us? But we could keep her shiny, if we drive real smooth and light. Glory_ – Larry’s coo turns distinctly messy and groaning. _We’ve got a feel for it now, we could make her run so –_

_Yeah, and we could shred our tires doing donuts out here, while Slit rides with the Immortan –_

Barry’s voice is cut off by a truly vicious crunch of Larry’s teeth around Nux’s windpipe, forcing a grisly swallow. Larry has not forgiven Barry for driving Capable away, and Nux has been suffering the worst war between them in months, his lungs clogged with burning ash. He has to hold still and force a few thin breaths for a moment.

Toast eyes him out of the corner of her eye with a warning edge of concern, like she would clearly resent being called upon to give emergency aid. 

Larry’s grip on his windpipe releases long enough for Barry to give a slurred rasp. _That breeder’s mixing the Colt clips in with the Lugers._

_What does it matter, she knows we’re smeg. The Immortan, Capable – who can’t we fail? What can’t we ruin? Soft, smelly, that’s what we are. We’ll die leaking, stepped on, wasted –_

_We can still do war, we’ve still got breath, and a few notches left before skin and bone –_ Nux fingers the holes on his belt beyond the buckle, marking how much time he has, how much red blood and muscle. _Get up! You’re on the Immortan’s machine, 2000 hp firing straight into your lines, soaked in guzz! Get beneath the Rig and tighten it up, make it run faster –_

_But she won’t see._

_She doesn’t need to. If the Rig runs strong, she’ll be shiny too, she needs it. Yes, if we grease it, coax it, make it shine, we can touch it –_

_It isn’t her._

_It’s close enough! What else is there? What do you want – to be full life? To dream of green and sun and the breeder’s soft skin in Immortan’s garden? We wrecked that. Now, if we –_

_YOU wrecked it!_

Toast peers closer at where the War Boy is huddled in the corner of the hold, his head twitching and his throat bobbing madly, like a hand is crushing it. He’s gone awful quiet. Immortan’s sun, if he chokes on his own spit right here … her eyes flare in alarm as he bangs his head viciously into the side, like he is trying to drown something out.

_Wait, Larry, I only did what was needed!_ Barry scoots around the other side of Nux’s windpipe, scrabbling, hot claws digging through his shoulder. _That war party IS coming, we have a few hours left, at most –_

_A few hours without her! You’re the reason we’re stuck in here with this one –_

_I AM the reason we’re here! I drove us hard to catch the Rig, I knew how to slow her down, crawl up through her belly, get her out of that smeg-stinking mud. I know her like I know them all – maybe it will be Dodge or Big Foot tomorrow._

Inside Nux, there is the deathly quiet of helpless agreement. And then very small, _But tonight –_

_Tonight doesn’t matter! You know this is our last chance, this ride. The canyon. That’s our death. Ours. She won’t take it from us._

Larry’s numb terror sinks down Nux’s spine, touching the root of him. _Our death. It can’t be – it must be – it can’t be –_

_It must be._

Nux retches into the back of his mouth, snapping forward over his stomach. He swallows it back again, indifferent to the acid taste and the fact he is drenched in sweat. 

Toast’s clipped voice startles him. “You alright?” 

Nux’s throat works, his eerie blue eyes sliding over to her. After a few moments, he gets it out. 

“You’ve got those Colt clips in with the Lugers.” 

Toast’s eyes hood, her jaw sliding to the slide. Right. That’s the thanks she gets … Nux winces away like her glare shines a bright light in his eyes. 

“And – and that Beretta’s jammed. Nothing but scrap now.”

Toast squints, assessing him critically. “You got the fever?”

Nux’s mouth shoves to the side, dragging a shaking hand over his knee to dry it. “What do you think.”

“I think it’s awful strange a War Boy stuck with us. And just after Capable went out the back. Wonder why that is.”

Nux is sweating again, and this time it has nothing to do with Larry and Barry’s feverish war for his breath, although they certainly aren’t sparing any in their opinions about it. 

_She knows. Glory. That sneaking breeder, she knows what we’ve done. She’ll get revenge on us – did she load that Colt just now, did you see it? And where did she slip off to before. To the cab? To the breeder? Fucking mess of twisted scrap – she told her. She told her we’re down here heaving like a dried up sun-sick –_

_Wait, shut up. Shut up, Barry. She DOES know. She’s mates with our breeder. She can tell us how to fix this wreck. Let’s ask her! Look, she’s right there, we can –_

_NO._ It has an edge of desperate panic, because Nux can’t help looking over at Toast again, with her permanent, disgruntled frown, picking over the guns in the bag she has before her. _Glory be, we’re not asking that._

_We have to, you just said it yourself. There’s no time. The canyon is coming, and then she won’t need us. She’ll start growing her green things, and wanting a full life to ride. Something chrome to match her._

Barry is temporarily distracted by pride. _No full life can drive like us. Got too much fear in them, fear of the road. They aren’t ready to be legend._

_Right. We can drive that breeder to the gates of Valhalla – she won’t forget that. We’ll make it so chrome she’ll want more guzz instead of green –_

_Yes, yes – make her choke on it, spitting her nitro-guzz right into us so we run faster and hotter than she’s ever –_

_So let’s ask her._

_What?_

_Let’s ask her mate how to smooth out the scratch we put in things. They must’ve gotten banged up before, if we just say …_

Nux ducks another glance at Toast, who has nicked her thumb, shoving it into her mouth with a curse. She glares at him, daring him to comment, and Nux’s eyes dart about, uneasy.

_There’s nothing to say to this one. She loaded that Colt._

_She’s getting ready for the canyon –_

_She’s in here with us._

_Yes, and if we told her what we want for Capable, that we want to make her –_

_What, wet and revved out on the sand? They don’t want that, none of them –_

_That we want to make her remember us._

Nux rubs under his nose, shuffling a little towards Toast. Toast leans back, her eyes narrowing. Her hand slides to the grip of the Colt at her side. But Nux is absorbed in fiddling with the edge of the bag she has propped open, staring down at the guns quite like she doesn’t exist. He licks his lips.

 _Wait. Wait …_ Barry shifts back and forth, tickling Nux’s throat and clenching it by turns. _It’ll sound so soft. Why would she want to help a pup who begs like that._

Larry is frustrated, so close to success. He practically leans Nux out over the bag of guns.

_Quit stalling like a frightened full life and fang it. ASK HER –_

Just before Nux’s mouth can open, Barry’s jaws clamp on his spine, jerking him back by the neck. One of his thick boots catches on the floor and he topples over, hastily righting himself, clasping his knees. He won’t look at Toast, but her hand slowly leaves the pistol, a faint pinch in her brows. 

Barry has closed down Nux’s breath to a thin rasp, useless for speech, but Larry cannot be cut off so effectively. 

_You coward! You stripped, rusted lug nut, we’ll never be remembered now! She’ll remember the shiny things – the Imperator, the Rig, the Mothers, even our bloodbag. He was driving. What did we do?_ There is a inner pause that feels like a nail scraping down metal. _Medio –_

_We’ll die! She’ll remember that. We’ll die legend, in a big, nasty blaze out there on the sand. That will cover the rest of it, how she found us curled up like leaking scrap, and then … then whatever it was … whatever scratched her just now …_

They stew for a moment together, trying to grasp again what drove her away. It’s hard for them to hold onto, but Larry, of course, is the quickest to remember.

_That WAS what scratched her. Your talk of war. Glory, what if … what if she does remember, and hates it…_

Barry is genuinely stumped by this, as is Nux himself, in a more reflective way. When the suffocating squeeze on his windpipe eases, he can take better stock of the fear and aggression wrestling for his attention, try to figure out how to use them. But he’s at a baffling standstill this time, and right at the crucial moment, with the canyon drawing near. 

What if he does see Capable’s look of reproach at the end, just before he falls under the wheels or is torn apart in flames – those clear green eyes fixed on him in cold disappointment. _At least one of you is kami-crazy enough to die like a smeg for that fool._ Nux starts to rock. He has been here before, in this exact moment. _Mediocre._

It doesn’t matter how he dies. This is the final proof he will never be legend. He had her gleaming body locked around him, taking the thrust of his weight – and that’s important, he doesn’t know why, but it is. She didn’t allow it before. This time she did, she even seemed to want it, to be asking him to drive. Take her hips in his hands, jam the throttle hard. But he stalled, wiped out – just barely hanging onto the side of the Rig. Again. _Mediocre._

He might as well curl up in the back of the Rig after all, wasting away with fever. No one will look to his last moment, crowing out in raw recognition of greatness. Even he would turn away from it if he could, out of repulsion or pity or boredom.

Larry’s voice wavers up. _But Capable would be pleased if we die quiet._

_She won’t be pleased when the rot sets in. You think she’s ever smelled a boy running on fumes? She’s got the world upside down, that one. Nothing but a coddled sun-sick._

_Well of course she’s coddled, she was his treasure, his breeder –_

They pause at a queasy gurgle of Nux’s stomach. It feels like fear, but not of a soft death, or shame, or pain … what is it, then? What else is there? It feels jumpy, jolted, like when he was sliding deep in her slick … breeding. Breeding? _He_ has been – _HE_ has been – 

“Alright, War Boy. What’s wrong with you.” Toast has hunkered down on her heels in front of Nux, propping two fingers on his temple and steering his head into her line of sight. “You’re jaw’s glued shut, and you’re shaking like a scaly on a skewer.”

He twitches out of her hand, his face fighting between a grimace and a forced smile.

“Fever’s nasty business, breeder. Go count some more guns.”

“Yeah, I get it … some kind of fever.” Toast looks briefly over her shoulder towards the hatch and Nux’s voice rises, rough and lashing.

“Where were you just then, where were you –“

Toast turns back with a wary look of challenge. “I went to the cab, to talk to Capable.” Nux gulps like he’s got gills on the sides of his pale neck. “You got a problem with that?”

“What for. You said something –“

“Yeah, it’s called talk. I told her I had a War Boy boiling in his own oil down here, and she might want to come cool it off a bit.”

The War Boy’s blue eyes are blazing in their darkened hollows, his cracked lips pressed tight. Toast shifts on the rusted floor of the compartment, remembering Capable’s cry of dismay at how much she told him about the girl’s habits in an effort to shut him up earlier. The War Boy hasn’t made a cry, but his boots have scraped up under his weight, like he is ready to evade a flashing knife or land a blow of his own. And she suspects this time, a humorous impression is not going to make a difference, no matter how brilliantly she could pull off Capable’s mortified wail. He is simply not going to get it. 

“Look. I don’t know what you’ve been doing –“

“She has, _she’s_ been doing it –“

“Okay. Good. That’s … I guess that’s good –“

“I let her, but I didn’t jam the throttle on her, I just – I let her get me up on blocks, get underneath and loosen up a few of my – my –“ 

“Whoa, stop. Stop, stop.” 

“Glory, I can’t – I did it again. I did it again, and again, and she’s the Immortan’s –“

“I said _stop_.” 

Toast reaches out and grips his head briefly. Nux quiets, looking at her sideways afterwards, his ear twitching. He swallows. His eyes roam about like they are tracking an invisible fly. Then they slice into her quickly. But he ducks his head, and doesn’t ask. 

Toast sighs. Glory be, what has that girl got herself into? She doesn’t even know how to say this to him. How could he possibly understand Capable’s troubled fondness, let alone her giggles and playful pride. 

“She’ll come down soon, War Boy. Alright?”

“She will? Come down here? Glory, breeder, is she –“ Toast holds up a hand to stall his sudden flurry, and he hugs his long arms around each other as if to show her he’ll keep them to himself, wringing his elbows. 

“Yeah. Sun knows why, but I reckon she’s taken a shine to you.” 

Several expressions flash over his face, puzzlement, gawking glee, uncertain fear, and Toast tries not to scrunch her nose at his strangeness, jangling his chains and buckles. This is just how they are. She’s knows that. She can see through it, see a boy strung out on little sleep, latching onto whatever can to keep his blood pounding, keep him alive. 

But she can also see those hands dragging a chain around Furiosa’s throat. She doesn’t like it when they flick and knead like this, restless, about to dart somewhere. His head is shaking, like he’s trying to throw off a heavy net, his shoulders rolling.

“Glory be, glory be, she’s coming – here? When. Quick?” This doesn’t seem to be directed at Toast, his eyes fixed ahead with keen focus. Towards the canyon. He bites part of his puffy lip, the look of determination growing. He bursts up, heading for the hatch.

“Whoa! War Boy!” 

Toast whirls around, snagging a hook on the back of his pants. Nux turns so fast his back slams into the front of the hold, his eyes round. Toast keeps her hands up, in case he might spring at her. 

“She’ll come down when she’s ready. And if that’s never, you’re staying here. Understand?”

Nux pushes off the wall, towering over her with a twitching grimace, his pale, lean back hunched and a fist clenched tight. Toast’s legs stiffen, throwing up her chin. A rough growl starts in his chest and her shoulders fall back, getting everything she can out of her short stature. Their noses are inches apart.

“I go there now.”

“No. You stay here.”

His growls have turned hard and repeated. “I stay, I’m wasting, and I won’t, I go –“

Toast’s dark eyes glare into him. “If you go, you will be wasting everything you’ve sweated for down here. You’re too revved. It’ll get her back up, just like mine. You’ve got to wait. For her. To be ready.” 

For a moment Toast thinks it’s not going to work, the blue eyes leveled into her own are too crazed and piercing. But she won’t flinch first. Just when she feels she must look away his lips twitch in a wolfish smile, his breath coming even faster.

“Wait. Yeah. I’ll wait.” 

His eyes are lit up like a flare, pressing even closer in his excitement. Toast’s heart is clenched in her chest, controlling the urge to back down from his snarls with an iron will. 

“Yeah. That’s right. She’ll come down when she’s ready.”

“Ready. Right. Ready.” 

His forehead knocks forcefully into her, and Toast reacts on instinct, the muzzle of her colt digging into the smooth curve of his skull behind his ear. 

“Toast! What in sun is going on?” Capable clambers the rest of the way into the hold, pushing up her goggles to better see in the dark.

Toast and Nux freeze, staring at each other in wide-eyed panic. Toast quickly lets the gun slip around her finger, giving him a rough rub on the head. “Hey – nothing! We were just, ah – we were –“

“Just scratching a bit.” Nux socks Toast a little too hard in the stomach, but she plays off her grunt pretty well as a laugh.

“Yeah. Scratching …” Toast doesn’t know exactly what that means, but she dodges the next nervous swipe Nux takes at her, landing a pretty solid punch just beneath his ribs. “Okay, _enough_.”

“Sure, sure, breeder –“

“Toast.” Capable’s immediate correction is cold and a bit wounded, and Nux shuffles his long body awkwardly back, cramped and miserable in the tiny hold, keeping his blue eyes swiveling to the side. 

Toast mutters, trying to make it sound casual. “It’s alright, I call him worse. Eh, lug nut?” 

Nux manages a grating laugh, too high and skittering, and Toast tosses him the Colt to give him something better to do.

“You could clean that.” 

Nux nods with a grateful squirm of his eyebrows and yanks a rag out of his pocket. 

“Wait. Toast …” 

Toast turns to Capable’s reluctant voice, a brow raised. “Yeah?”

“Could he come with me for a minute? I wanted to show him something.”

Toast lets her breath out slowly, with a faint shake of her head. “Sure. Shiny. Give me that.” 

Nux half tosses the Colt and Toast half catches it. Capable takes Nux’s hand, turning to the door, and Toast can almost see stars bursting in Nux’s eyes as he ducks his head to follow her out. Toast feels a shiver of strangely joyful laughter in her heart. When they’re gone she digs her hands back into the guns, cursing internally with a little troubled fondness of her own.

***

Capable leads Nux up onto the top of the War Rig, settling them down in the middle, an equal distance from the Vuvalini posted at the front and back of the tanker. Nux is breathing at half capacity, on the off chance a full breath could disturb this fragile reunion. He sticks a hand behind his head, one baggy knee flopping open. Capable wiggles in next to his chest, and Nux stares off into the distance, his eyes round and bright. 

“It’s a clear night.”

“Uh … yeah. Shiny.” 

A quiet descends as they absorb the impact of being close again, the sense of a fracture mended before the bone has really started to nit. Nux fingers a few tendrils of red hair to the side of her head, gently enough he thinks she won’t notice it. There is a simple contented hum from Larry, even Barry has cuddled into himself for a brief breather. A silent lull. 

Nux closes his eyes. He could sleep right now, almost immediately. 

“See that?”

“Mm, what?” 

Nux looks at her with hooded eyes, caught in that drowsy moment of relaxed attention when it still possible to stave off sleep. Capable points up at the sky.

“That star there. I made a quilt of a constellation it’s part of.”

“Oh yeah, your quilt-things. Sounds real shiny.”

Capable’s green eyes turn into his, large and sparkling. The bottom just about falls out of Nux’s stomach. 

“Really? You don’t think it’s a little … well …”

“A little sun-soft?” 

She seems to wilt a bit, and Larry stirs groggily. _What are you doin’. Don’t mess this …_

“Nah. Bet you stitch things all glossy and chrome. I can fix a few things –“ He tugs at his pants, dusting the heavy canvas roughly. “But nothing real keen.” 

“Maybe I’ll show them to you. I couldn’t take any with me …”

Barry gives a soft snort. _Listen to this one. She’ll dress us up in something soft and green, you wait …_ He gives a start, hearing himself. _World up-side down, I swear … like we’ve got any time left for coddling …_

 _Shh. She’s telling a story._ Larry hunkers down next to Barry like a pup watching sparks fly from a mechanic’s saw. 

Capable takes Nux’s hand and straightens his finger, moving it around so that he can pick out the stars she names. Her hushed whisper is warm on his ear.

“Those ones are the belt of a man named Orion. And these ones over here are called the Pleiades. The old ones say they are women, running away from him. I stitched them into everything I could, knowing he would never –“ She breaks off with a swallow, her voice harder. “They gave me hope.”

She looks up at him and he nods. Satisfied, she draws a long line across the sky. 

“That thick band is the Milky Way.”

“Mother’s milk.”

“Yes.”

_Mothers milk, Barry. See? We’re helping …_

_Shut up._

“The old ones say those stars are a great river –“

“River?”

“There used to be so much water, it would run in great streams through the ground.”

“Huh. Where did it run to?”

“I … I don’t know.”

_See? World upside-down._

_Sssh!_

“They say those stars are the fires of people camped along the river in the next life. They thought that when we die, a large boat –“

“Boat?”

“Like a vehicle without wheels, or a – a big bowl you sit in, that can take you places on water.”

“A bowl you sit in. These old ones were a bit dented, eh –“

“You can think of it as a tanker.”

“Shiny.” 

Nux has brought their hands down, still curled together between them, blinking at her instead of the stars. Capable rests for a moment, taking strength from sinking her eyes into the pitch black of the sky, all the more inky and unnerving for how bright the stars are. She knows her voice is round and reverent, and she doesn’t hide from it.

“I read that the old ones believed a boat takes people who die up to that camp, and then a falling star tells the ones left behind that they made it there safe.” 

Capable’s breath catches and Nux leans close.

“Look – there. Right there, the brightest one.” 

He blinks up at the star shining on the edge of the horizon. “That’s the morning star. Some of them called it Barnumbirr. When she rises, she drags a line behind her that lets us say things to those who have died. I say things to them …” But she doesn’t say who they are. She turns back to him, with her heart in her eyes. “I will speak to you too.”

Nux feels a strangeness steal over him, a chill deep in his bones that slows his heart, soothes his lungs. It feels like being ready. Those words, her green eyes fixed on him intently, her soft breath on his lips – it is chrome, bright chrome coating his skin and teeth. 

_We are awaited …_

His eyes press shut as Capable’s fingers gently touch his mouth and down the cords of his neck, tightened by a rough swallow. 

“Will you go there. To the camp by the milky river. And send a star back so I know you did.”

He is shivering, his knees dug together, curled next to her. His voice is cracked, shivering too.

“If it’s really up there.” 

“It is.” She says it like this is the gravest truth she carries, pressing the back of his hand to her cheek. 

“Then yeah. Yeah. I’ll go.” 

Capable ducks her head, squeezing his hand hard, and he thinks she might be crying. With a shifting frown, Nux tries to tilt her head back to see. She lets him, her tear-streaked face breaking into a grin. Nux leans back a bit, trying to make sense of this. It looks like she might be about to pounce on him with a trembling laugh, the long-standing tension in her broken. 

She sucks up some of her leaking fluids and wipes her nose with the back of her leather cuff.

“You know what else they say?”

She pulls over him, beaming down, pushing the goggles back so they don’t fall over her face. It suddenly occurs to Nux that they are mere steps away from keenly watching Vuvalini. Mostly, this occurs to him because his body has just been jumped by booster cables, a current coursing through the arm that lightly touches his side. He is hard and throbbing and caught, frozen in place. 

“I read that the old ones believed the sun is a woman –“

_What? But that’s the Immortan’s, he caught it –_

“And the moon is a man, and very rarely, when the sun gets blotted out in the sky, it means the moon is breeding with her.”

_No – no wait, she’s not going to –_

Capable’s hands slide around Nux’s pale, spongy scalp, fondling his floppy ears with a grin. Her red hair is darkened in the night, but her eyes are shining brightly enough to remind him how it glints in the sunlight. 

“I was thinking … _we’re_ a rare thing.”

Barry’s protest spirals up. _Not the moon, we’re NOT the moon. It’s the soft underbelly of the sun, everything weak and pale …_

Capable cocks her head, and he can tell she sees the touch of horror screwing up his lip. He sags his jaw immediately, but it’s too late, she is already hesitating, some of the tension back in her shoulders. 

_Oh glory, Barry, you’re not ruining this again, not again, I swear, I swear I’ll kill you –_

“What do you think?” Her hand traces his chest. Somewhat suspiciously, her fingers come to run alongside the lumps at his neck. “What does Barry think.” 

There is a long grumpy pause at Nux’s windpipe. Then Barry turns his back with a disgusted snort. _Glory be. Quilt-things. Boat-things. Sun-women. It’s all soft smeg – why not the moon._

Nux meets her eyes with a quick nod. “The moon. Yeah. He’s keen. Real keen.” 

Capable smothers him in a hug, making him gag blissfully on her red hair. She has settled on top of him, the cool skin of her bare stomach running hot as soon as it touches his own. It takes a single drag of his bulky pants between her legs for her to gasp his name into his ear. It is such a damp, free groan of delight he is focused upon it with the precision of a hairpin turn on hard dirt. 

Nux is rigid. He can’t move, because even so much as a twitch would rocket him into the realm of squirming ecstasy, and she would need to pin him down to keep them from rolling off the top of the Rig. If she stripped his buckles and held him down right here, he would not stop her, but he’s pretty sure his knee would lodge in her back a few times from trying to hold back the nitro-guzz coursing through his veins. He wants to drive. He wants to fang it so hard she can hardly breathe. 

Capable, however, seems content to linger, savoring the tiniest rubs against him, barely perceptible to the eyes that might pass over them while scanning the horizon. He can tell it is good for her, separated from the satisfying friction of his pants by a mere gauzy linen. But for him, the soft pressure of her thigh squeezing just beside his rock hard dick is close to slow and detailed torture. 

_Maybe we’ll die of a busted shift._

_More, more, just a little more – glory, a little more –_

_Wasn’t this Moon-man breeding?_

Capable stiffens subtly, her thigh sinking deeper against him, and Nux gives a helpless buck. Capable looks in his face, taking in his clamped jaw and glazed eyes. She murmurs softly, a little aghast.

“We could – the hold – Toast would probably –“

Nux is already moving, heaving up and stumbling in a clumsy bee-line to the front of the tanker. His arm is caught by one of the old women, steadying him, another holding up her hands in case he should lurch off the Rig in her direction. He hardly notices, bent on getting down the rungs and reaching the hold. Their faint voices sound behind him.

“Easy now, you’ve got time –“

“Careful with him, kid. Hasn’t got much blood left in his head, I reckon.” 

There is rough laughter, mostly gentle, and Capable is helped down after him.

***

Toast is curled up in a corner of the hold, hugging her bag of guns. She is startled out of her thin sleep by the War Boy crashing into the hold. Her slow heartbeat rockets to a hammer, for his face is screwed up in that ferocious look they get when the pursuit vehicles peel out of the Citadel, and his bare torso is contorted, his hands scrambling with his buckles. 

Toast’s eyes saucer, the Colt cocked by her ear in an instant. But then Capable staggers in after him, breathless and whispering. 

“Wait, Toast might be –“ 

Capable is lifted bodily off the floor, her back slammed against the side of the hold. The War Boy jams between her legs with a harsh snarl, his head butting hard into Capable’s ear. Toast jerks into a crouch, every nerve screaming at her to pounce upon him, tear at his pale flesh, get him off her. Jam the barrel of the Colt in the hollow at the back of his head. 

But Capable’s legs are wrapped tight around him, hooking and sliding to get a better grip, and her whimpers are almost groans, almost laughter, still very much breathless.

Toast is struck – the sound is just a hair’s breath away from the kind of wrestling grunt of refusal she knows, but it is subtly, crucially, different, and she hangs there with her heart in her throat. 

“Oh no, oh … wait … we haven’t looked …” 

_Oh no?_ Did she say no? But Toast can see how Capable’s hand squeezes around the back of Nux’s head, kneading the smooth curve of it, desperate to pull it closer – their mouths connect, sloppy and digging, and something turns over in Toast’s stomach. A bright burst of amazement. 

She’s seen this before, but had forgotten it for such a long time. Is this … is this what it …? The barrel of the Colt sags to the side, Toast clasping a hand over her mouth. A kiss! A lovers kiss. Her child eyes didn’t see it as a marvel, the rare, precious oddity it is, but they also didn’t see how ridiculous it looks, all banging noses and grappling to suck a little deeper. She could laugh in semi-hysterical disbelief. 

She also sees that the two of them have forgotten Capable’s faint protest, as well as the reason for it. Nux’s fingers bite into Capable’s thighs, forcing her legs open wider, and his grip on her slips. They jar ungracefully onto the floor of the hold, Capable ignoring her hard landing, simply getting her hands into every bunching curve of Nux’s arms and back that she can. He tugs at the linen around her waist, getting it off and then plowing his face directly between Capable’s legs. 

Capable jerks with a yelp of surprise, and Toast’s eyes dive into slits – she can tell her friend is stiff now in an effort not to immediately kick him off, slam her legs closed. Her hand flexes around the Colt, steadying it across her stomach. She would call out, let Capable know she’s there, but something continues to hold her tongue. She can see that even Capable’s wince is a sign of tender bravery, determined to receive whatever he does with sincere desire. 

Again Toast finds a giddy disgust twisting her lips in a suppressed, mortified grin. Whatever bizarre thing the War Boy is doing – and it looks like he is simply smearing his face as thoroughly as he can with the slick wet of Capable’s body – he is certainly enthusiastic, giving the most ragged, guttural sounds of thirsty ecstasy she has ever heard. 

For the first time, Toast tips her face discreetly away, looking to the door of the hold. It’s time she slipped away. As Toast contemplates this, however, it becomes a rather difficult prospect. A shift is happening on the floor to her right, she can hear it in Capable’s whimpers. The boy has started licking, her knees have started trembling, fallen back on a palm. Capable is rigid now for an entirely different reason, her mouth stretched open and her eyes fixed like she is seeing stars explode before them. 

Toast is aware that her friend’s broken gasps are of the most intimately personal kind, but also the most precarious, capable of being thrown off by a slight distraction – the sudden revelation that her friend has been caught in the dark corner all this time, for instance. She has to wait for a rougher, more scrambling moment when she won’t be noticed. 

Thankfully, Toast still has her wits and humor about her. She sticks the colt in her lap and squeezes her eyes shut, jamming her fingers in her ears. Even then, she can hear the peeling whines of Capable’s pleasure, clenched and panting on the hold floor. 

The sounds go quiet, and Toast risks cracking an eye. The War Boy is crouched over Capable, rubbing his nose and cheek along her belly in long dragging strokes, drying it and shuddering at having her soft skin to bury himself in. Capable is working at the buckles around his raised hips. She gets them, the heavy canvas sliding off the curve of the boy’s pale ass. 

Toast’s eyes go round again – she has to go, _now_. Trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, she crouches on the balls of her feet and then darts swiftly for the door. 

Once outside, Toast has never felt so grateful to have the cool, refreshing wind on her face, and the rumbling roar of the War Rig around her. One of the old women from the front of the tanker drops down beside her with a knowing look at the Colt she still holds. The woman jerks her head back to the hold.

“She alright in there?” 

Toast lets out a deep breath and nods. “As far as I can make out.”

The old woman smirks, but there’s warmth in it. “It’s the best thing when it’s done right.” She pauses, cocking an ear to catch the sound of rapid thudding from inside. “Sounds more right than wrong, at least.” 

She gives a chummy cackle and Toast feels a tightness ease in her heart, relieved that someone who knows more than she, who remembers these strange things better, thinks it is alright too. A free smile breaks over Toast’s face, her brow still pinched up like she can’t believe it. 

She finally laughs.

***

Inside the hold, Capable clutches Nux’s lean, angular body slumped on top of her. She can feel the distant possibility of panic at being pinned down, unable to move. But it is very distant, and she focuses on the fact that her knee is still shaking, the satisfying feeling of his dick sunk in her as deep as it can go. 

He just pounded her with such single-minded strength and speed she could do little more than suck in a quick breath here and there, and hang on. It was too blunt and relentless for her own climax, but she is dazed nonetheless by the new feeling of being hollowed out and hammered so hard she might have trouble standing. It was so intense her entire body had seized with pleasure, ringing through her legs and down into her toes. 

And she knows how good it was for him, to bend over her and not hold back, driving as fast and rough as he liked without pause. She knows from the way her ear hurts, where he bit it, and the red marks of his thumbs in her thighs. The sucking breath he took after the powerful slam of his release, like his lungs had been closed off for days. The ragged, half-formed prayers petering out in her ear.

Gently, Capable unwinds her legs, gasping a little again as he slides out of her, the cool air hitting the slippery, sticky mess between their bodies. She sits up, catching his head in her hands. He won’t look at her, fumbling to get his pants back up and latch at least one buckle. She lets him get one before stroking a hand down his back to make him fall still. 

Her whisper is hoarse, warm and satisfied. “Nux, if you died right here, you’d be legend …” The muscles in Nux’s back ball up, his ear tilting to catch more. Capable holds onto the strength of her pleasure to find the courage to say this. Make it real. “You’d die chrome, historic … even the heroes haven’t imagined it.”

He rubs his skull into her palm with a shiver, lapping up her vision of a shining death with a grateful grunt. “What, what. What would they say.”

“You would have his legacy.”

“Who.” It is little more than a rough bark of excitement. 

“The Immortan.” Capable rests her hand on her belly, still slick with sweat. Nux stares at her uncomprehending for a moment, his jaw slack. “You … you would have …” His eyes go round, his breath faint. Without looking away from her face, he dips down and gently bites at her belly, as if he might be able to taste what is in it.

“I did that, I did, glory … glory …” 

Capable can’t bear how wet and blue his eyes are, blinking up at her in the dark. She squeezes him hard, hugging his face tight to her stomach. 

“A legend of life, Nux. New life, that comes from beyond this world.”

From where his face is smushed in her slick skin, she feels his cracked lips move in a wondering whisper.

“I live, I die … I live again.” 

Capable pulls his round head up by the ears. He looks groggy now, half-drowned, fully gorged on this promise. It lances into her heart – how many War Boys there are. How impossible it was at the Citadel to realize each one was at the center of his own dramatic struggle for a good life and death. She couldn’t grasp it. She can barely hold it in mind even now, for Nux’s gleam of satisfaction is too rich, too moving to let the others be seen in any detail behind him. But she knows they are there. Many more are waiting through this night for the morning. 

Nux bows his head, his half-smile tugging his face, his eyes finding all the crevices of her and then of the hold, a stillness coming over him when he turns to the side and can think of the canyon. 

Capable is frightened of what they have done, her bones threatening to splinter under the weight of such a thing. But she is young. Her bones are strong. They can shift around it, hold it. Bear it. She can take the pain. The tales of the stars are not old. They are right here, fresh and present, created again in their flesh and cries and looks. 

She understands him, now. What he was afraid of. She can see that meaningless death fading into the distance behind them. They are far past it, plunging ahead with blood pounding in their veins, bright and fresh like roaring water. Each breath they take is sharp and clean, filled with life, the approaching canyon compressing its force and power down into a single moment, with everything at stake. But not what makes life worthy of this – worth paying the greatest price, worth making the price something great. That is already done. 

His head tips in her hand, collected and quiet. She didn’t trust him before, but she does now, with simple confidence. His clear blue eyes turn to meet her. 

“Don’t think I’ll get stirred up this time.”

“No.” 

She holds him for another fierce, sparkling moment, and then lets go. Finds her linens.

They are almost there.

**Author's Note:**

> What Capable says about the stars is lifted from this wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_astronomy


End file.
